


Safety

by skyenapped



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Angst, Divorce, Infidelity, M/M, Reconciliation, Second Chances, also a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-15 08:52:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2222952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyenapped/pseuds/skyenapped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m just like my mother, Mike. You deserved better.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Harvey fucks up and can't admit it. Mike blames himself. THIS IS 97% ANGST YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Also Mike has a cat.
> 
> Work and life has kept me from writing, so this fic happened while I was half-asleep.

*

 

It was insidious. Like rotting teeth or cancer; the kind of thing you never know exactly which bite of sugar or drag of a cigarette was the final straw. It was probably inevitable. For Mike it was out of left field.

“I want a divorce.”

Cold water, a near-miss in traffic on his bike; nothing ever stopped his heart quite like those four words out of Harvey’s mouth, on a Tuesday, in the middle of dinner.

In three years they’d never had a fight. Disagreements, of course, but nothing even close to the caliber of separation; nothing that didn’t blow over. Nothing that hadn’t been solved between the sheets and forgotten about solely from the flash of Harvey’s smile; the one that unfailingly made Mike weak in the knees.

His instinct, when Harvey asked for the divorce, was to ask what the hell was happening. But he didn’t get the first word out, let alone all of them, before he was stuttering, sputtering, his fork tap-tap-tapping on his plate as his hand started to tremble, his throat tightened, and the floor crumbled under his feet.

“Is this a joke?” was all he could say, when he could say anything at all, and his voice had a hopeful scoff-laugh to it, like there was a shred of possibility that Harvey’s humor had taken a sudden and very dark turn.

But Harvey’s head just shook very slowly, expression grave and sorry and yet…not exactly apologetic. 

After that, Mike locked himself in the bathroom and tried to talk himself down from a panic attack. He was only half-successful.

Harvey didn’t give an explanation, and Mike was too shell-shocked to pry one out of him. He supplied perfunctory details about what they would do next as he created a bed for himself on the couch, which Mike, over the sound of his shattering heart, thought, _how charitable of you to give me the bed._

“I’ll sleep on the couch until you find a place.”

No deadline, and Harvey wasn’t throwing him out on the street, but his tone didn’t sound entirely like he wanted Mike to take his time.

Mike went to bed with haunting words floating around his head, muffled by confusion and devastation. He slept on Harvey’s side of the mattress, which was softer, and once he was certain Harvey was fast asleep in the living room, he started to cry.

 

*

 In the morning, it all felt like a dream.

Harvey was making coffee in the kitchen like any other Wednesday. He was showered and dressed and handsome and Mike stopped in the doorway just to watch him.

They didn’t work together anymore. After Sidwell let him go, and Rachel decided she’d never fallen out of love with Logan, Mike had wound up at Harvey’s door – and hadn’t left. He’d taken a few random jobs after that, struggling to find his calling, until Harvey suggested the one thing Mike had always hoped he could do – that he go back to college.

It wasn’t hard to believe it’d been three years – they were a whirlwhind, but so much had happened in all of them and the recent past was jam packed with memories. Nights spent laughing on the couch, watching Netflix, the wedding, the trip to Italy, waking up in the sun in Harvey’s room like Mike had finally found out where he belonged.

And now he felt sick to his stomach.

He put on pants because he felt strangely exposed in only his boxers, like Harvey didn’t want to see him like that anymore. Harvey didn’t want to share a bed with him anymore. Harvey didn’t even want to _live_ with him anymore.

_Harvey doesn’t love me anymore._

The night before and all of its implications crashed down on Mike’s shoulders. He ran his thumb over the ring on his finger, and continued to watch Harvey engage in his usual morning routine until the other man noticed him, gave a light nod of acknowledgement, and went back to his coffee.

“Hey,” Mike finally said, walking up to the island. “Can we talk?”

Harvey looked at his watch. “Not now. I’m running late.”

“Tonight then?”

Harvey nodded.

“Okay. Uh, do you think Ray can drop me off at school? I have an exam and—”

“If you can get dressed in three minutes.”

 

*

Despite Harvey’s promise, they didn’t actually talk about It for two more nights. Mike didn’t think he’d ever slept less in his entire life.

Finally, on Friday evening, over the quiet white noise of the television, Mike took a deep breath.

“What did I do wrong?”

Harvey didn’t answer for a moment, and it terrified Mike, but it also gave him hope. If he’d screwed up, it meant that he might be able to fix it.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why—”

“I’m just done, Mike.” Harvey sounded exasperated, and he didn’t look up from his work. He must have sensed that Mike was close to breaking, because he added, softly, “I need you to not freak out about this. Because I can’t handle it.”

Mike retreated to the shower where the rush of the water drowned out the sounds of his sobs.

 

*

The subject of moving out wasn’t brought up again, but he could feel that Harvey was waiting for him to do it. So, with what little, shredding strength he had, Mike began to scan ads for apartments.

It took two weeks, which wasn’t bad, considering. He ended up in a studio in the Bronx on the fourth floor of a walk-up. It wasn’t much, but it served its purpose, and more importantly, he was able to make the rent with what he still had saved from his final few months at Pearson Specter.

But his savings were stretched thin after moving, and he scrambled to find work that would accommodate his full-time schedule at NYU. He settled for waiting tables at night, because it would pay the bills without interfering with class. It left little time for sleep.

 

*

Harvey showed up just off campus the following week, and Mike’s heart fluttered hopefully, only to crash back down into his stomach at the sight of the papers in his husband’s hands.

“I need you to sign these when you have a chance,” Harvey explained. “I scheduled the divorce proceedings for next Monday.”

“I have class Monday,” Mike said, once he remembered to breathe. He felt anger coiling inside him that up until now, he’d never, ever felt toward Harvey.

“I know, which is why I scheduled it for after them.”

“I have work after them.”

“Take the day off.”

Mike shook his head. “I work a minimum wage hospitality job, Harvey. I can’t just ‘take a day off’ whenever I feel like it. I’ll need more notice than that.”

“It’s a full week, Mike.”

“Fine.”

Harvey pushed the divorce papers into Mike’s hands. “Bring these when you come. And I need you to make a list of what you want.”

“What I want?”

“Yeah, you know…” Harvey looked away like he was uncomfortable for the first time in his life. “We never had a pre-nup, so…just, whatever you want, write it down for the court.”

“What…” Mike gaped. “You think…you think I want your _fucking money,_ Harvey?!” he shouted, his words incredulous and bitter.

“Mike—”

“No, don’t. Don’t. Fuck you, Harvey. I’ll come to your stupid meeting.”

 

*

As promised, Mike showed up nineteen seconds early to the divorce proceeding. It was a table much like the boardroom at the firm, only smaller, less proud.

Harvey was already there, wearing a three-piece suit and an unreadable expression. Across from him was the mediator – an older, calm looking man who appeared to have been doing this for many years.

Mike kept an empty chair between himself and Harvey when he sat down, despite the urge to be close to him.

“Mr. Ross, I was told you brought the final dissolution of marriage paperwork with you?”

Setting the papers Harvey had given him on the table, Mike nodded. He’d cringed the day he’d read them, eyes immediately having trailed down to the box Harvey had checked – _irreconcilable differences –_ and Mike had thought, _what irreconcilable differences?_

He’d been too busy trying to keep it together to give in to the breakdown he knew was dangerously mounting inside him.

“And have you signed it in full?” asked the mediator.

Mike hesitated and then shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “I…didn’t have a pen.”

Harvey shook his head and looked away.

The mediator handed Mike a pen, and Mike began to scan the papers again as though he didn’t already have the entire thing committed to memory. Harvey’s signature at the bottom already haunted him – he’d come to recognize that handwriting; big and confident, and here, on this document, Mike didn’t even make out a trace of hesitation in the ink.

“If you need more time to look it over,” the mediator said. “We can go over the finances and assets first.”

Harvey appeared annoyed by the opportunity to stall, but Mike took his chance.

“Yeah, that would be good,” he said.

“Alright, then.” The man across from them straightened up. “In that case, if you’re prepared to make your stipulations, Mr. Ross, I believe we’re ready.”

“My stipulations?”

“The things I told you to write down,” Harvey cut in. It was the first thing he’d said so far. “What you want.”

“Ohhh.” Mike nodded sarcastically. “Like your money. That sort of thing?”

The mediator didn’t seem fazed by the bitterness. “Yes.”

“Well I don’t want any of his money, so, I guess we can wrap this thing up.”

“Then I will skip the financial aspect, Mr. Ross. Are you currently sharing a healthcare plan?”

Harvey answered that one with a professional, “Yes.”

“In that case, if you would like to terminate your spouses’ enrollment you can do that after the divorce is finalized, which could take ten to thirty days.”

“I don’t want to terminate it,” Harvey said, glancing at Mike who was looking down in his own lap. “He can stay on it until he finishes school.”

Mike didn’t feel much like finishing school in that moment, but he didn’t object. He’d gone without health insurance for most of his life and if he could avoid that struggle, he would.

“The last part is custody,” the mediator announced. “Do you have children together?”

Harvey shook his head. “No.”

Mike felt a sharp pain in his chest, like the physical manifestation of heartache. He willed himself not to cry until this disaster was over.

“Alright then. If you’re ready to sign, Mr. Ross, I can get you two on your way. If there’s anything else you’d like to change, now’s the time to speak up.”

Mike was quiet for several minutes, time dragging on like a suspension of reality as he stared down the dotted line. Eventually, Harvey’s voice – urging but soft – forced him to concentrate.

“Mike,” Harvey said. “Is there anything else or are we done?”

“I…”

“What?”

“I want to keep my ring,” he blurted out, not trying to sound quite so desperate. He covered the band with his forefinger protectively, like Harvey might order he give it back.

But he didn’t.

“Okay.”

Mike wondered if Harvey knew he was going to keep it; not pawn it off even if he was starving to death. From where he was sitting, Mike couldn’t ever see himself reaching a point in life where he wouldn’t want to wear it.

“And I want Safety,” Mike continued.

Safety was their cat – well, Mike’s cat, to be specific. A stray that he’d started feeding two years ago, much to Harvey’s initial chagrin. But Safety had taken to Mike immediately – as did most people – and Harvey scooped the cat up one day, took it to the vet, and then brought it home on Mike’s twenty-fifth birthday.

The mediator frowned, “Pets are something you can work out together outside of the law.”

“Whatever,” Mike muttered. He was aware he sounded petulant and unprofessional, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t the one who’d scheduled this public humiliation in the first place. “I still want something in writing that says he can’t take her back.”

“You can have the damn cat, Mike,” Harvey snapped. “Now can you sign, so we can get the hell out of here?”

“I’m not done,” Mike persisted. “If Safety gets sick and I don’t have any money, you have to help.”

Harvey tossed up his hands. “Whatever the cat needs, Mike,” he said, sighing.

“And I also want our blankets. And the picture of us from Italy on the fridge.”

The mediator raised his eyebrow and turned toward Harvey. “Any objections?”

“No. He can have the ring and the cat and the blankets and…the picture.”

“Okay, then. I’ll document what was agreed upon. Just waiting on your signature, Mr. Ross.”

Mike leaned forward, stared down the place opposite Harvey’s handwriting. He picked up the pen and brought it close to the paper, then stopped, the tip just hovering over a line while he felt his future narrowing.

It wasn’t until a teardrop hit the black ink of Harvey’s signature, making it bleed, that Mike even realized he’d started to cry. Embarrassed, he quickly scribbled his name on the adjacent line, then stood up and ran out of the room, out of the building, into the street where he gasped for air.

 

*

Mike had no idea how a year passed, but it did. And in that entire year, he’d had no contact with Harvey. No texts, no calls, no visits. He did receive a letter about a month after their divorce, from the court, alerting him that the divorce had in fact been finalized.

They were ex-husbands.

And Mike still had no idea why.

It was like going from 60-0 in five years. Harvey was there, all the time, and then – like he’d been something made up in Mike’s mind as some kind of survival mechanism for getting by as an orphan – Harvey was gone.

Generally, Mike still knew where he was. Knew that he lived in the same condo – their old condo – and that he was still working at the firm and nothing seemed to have changed in his life aside from the fact that he didn’t want Mike in it anymore.

Mike still wondered if Harvey was seeing somebody else. He wondered if that was the reason Harvey had asked for a divorce in the first place, but if so, it had never come up. In fact, Harvey’s ambiguity about their break-up remained.

So Mike dragged himself through the year, sitting numbly through classes, doing only just enough to pass; a complete one-eighty from any motivation to put his brain to use that he had before.

At night, he slaved away at the restaurant, trying to pick up shifts at the bar when he could, so that money wouldn’t feel as tight. Part of him was fairly sure that if he asked Harvey to help him pay his rent, he would, but Mike never wanted to ask Harvey for anything.

Except an explanation, but he never found the nerve.

After work, he got home and had roughly one hour to shower and change and – if he was lucky – eat something. After that, time was narrowed down to about four hours of sleep before his alarm would go off again.

He was weary and on the verge of burnout and sometimes he didn’t even have the strength to change out of his work clothes or search through his cabinets if they were remotely stocked. Instead he’d just faceplant into bed, Safetly curled up under his arm, and his only saving grace was that he was always exhausted enough that he could only think about Harvey, only miss Harvey, only love Harvey, only hate Harvey, for several minutes before he was dead asleep.

_“Do you have a name for her yet?”_

_Mike smiled up from the couch, large, spoiled calico cat claiming his lap, like she’d done the day Harvey brought her home with a ridiculous red bow on her head._

_“Safety.”_

_Harvey frowned curiously. “Mike, it’s a cat. Give her a cat name.”_

_“But I like that one. Plus, she’s already getting used to it.”_

_“Okay then.” Harvey shrugged, sat down close next to his husband, ruffled his hair and then reached down to scratch Safety’s chin while she purred gratefully, and loudly, like a code of gratitude for her new home. “Why Safety?”_

_Mike shrugged. “She’s safe now,” he explained. “And…you got her for me. So she kinda makes me feel safe, too.”_

_Harvey looked back at him with brown, understanding eyes and nodded._

Safety still did that; made Mike feel secure when all he wanted to do was cave in to a break down. She was a constant reminder of his marriage, but a good one. And she kept him company; sat on his books while he did his homework, purred on his chest when he had a spare half-day off to watch TV, and consistently slept under his arm every night.

 

*

When a year passed, Mike looked at the calendar at work and fought back emotion. It was – or would have been – their fourth anniversary. He’d never looked that far ahead back then, but he’d never doubted they’d make it, not only to four years, but to eight, to sixteen, to thirty, until death did they part.

Harvey was his soulmate. And for three years – and for most of the two and a half before that – he’d treated Mike as if he were his, too. He’d treated Mike like gold, right up until that night, right up until the moment those words came out of his mouth.

_I want a divorce._

 

*

Mike’s classes at NYU had been paid for up until his fourth semester. After that, he either had to pay up or drop out. And making nine dollars an hour wasn’t going to cut it.

Part of him – no, most of him – considered calling it; walking into the registration office and officially withdrawing. Or hell – just never showing up to class again.

Which was ultimately what he did.

It wasn’t entirely intentional. In fact, it started when he overslept calculus one morning, and then statistics the next day, and the next, until he got so far behind that even his eidetic memory couldn’t remember where the hell they’d left off in those classes – or any of them.

Even though he’d quit school, three weeks later he was still cripplingly sleep deprived, like three quarters of a month of six to eight hours a night would never be enough to compensate for the year he felt like he’d spent on an insomnia bender.

The plus was that he was able to switch to day shift, so he felt marginally more like a human now that he was actually awake – and not just on autopilot – when the sun came up. And on his one day off a week, he could even maintain a mostly normal sleeping schedule.

But it was for the best, probably, that those days off were typically few and far between, and that he worked as many hours as he could during the week, picking up overtime until his boss cut him off, trying to pay the rent on time and in full, and have enough left over to feed himself and Safety, and keep the lights on and the water less than freezing.

Then, a week after a year had passed, Harvey knocked on his door, and Mike felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach.

The first words out of Harvey’s mouth, as he waved an envelope in front of Mike’s face, were vicious and accusatory. “What the hell is this?  I pay for college for two years and then I get a letter saying you’ve been skipping class for a month and now you’re automatically withdrawn?”

Mike opened his mouth, too distracted by Harvey’s face – _god, he’d missed him_ – and his tone. Harvey didn’t let him get a word in edgewise. He pushed his way into the tiny apartment.

 “You think I spent twenty grand on this school so you could throw up your hands and drop out after a couple years?”

“I…” Mike didn’t know what to say; didn’t even know where to begin. He noticed that after Harvey had calmed down, he’d begun to survey the room, and Mike looked down at the floor in shame and hoped his ex-husband would spare any comments about his subpar living arrangements.

Eventually, tone only just a bit softer, still cloaked in disappointment, Harvey said, “Nothing to say about it, Mike?”

Mike stood ramrod still, blood cold and brain confused, the last year of his life blasting through his head at warp speed. After spending five years practically joined at the hip, they hadn’t seen each other in over thirteen months, and Harvey hadn’t even said _hey._

He couldn’t possibly grasp how wounded Mike really was.

With a sigh, Harvey dropped the envelope stamped NYUonto the coffee table.

“I’m not going to ask you to pay me back—” He glanced around again. “Because you clearly couldn’t afford to.”

Mike winced.

“But when you wake up and realize you made a mistake, and you’re sick of trying to live off tips while your brain rots, remember this: I’m not giving that school another cent again.”

He turned toward the door, and the idea of his absence – the possibility of never seeing him again – gave Mike the courage to speak.

“Harvey, wait,” he begged, and to his relief, Harvey stopped with his hand on the door handle, turned around, exasperated, looking almost as tired as Mike felt. Like work had taken a toll on him the past year, too.

 _“What,_ Mike?”

“I was…tired—”

“We’re all tired.”

“No, I mean…” Mike struggled, fidgeting with his hands and fighting back tears. “I was _exhausted._ Harvey, I wasn’t sleeping…ever. I couldn’t even focus in class because I hadn’t slept the night before, ‘cause I got home at midnight and did homework until three. I just…started zoning out. I couldn’t cut my hours at work, or I wouldn’t make rent. I still hardly can. I wanted to stay in school, Harvey. But I couldn’t afford it. And I couldn’t quit my job. And I couldn’t do both. I tried…I tried to do everything for so long and I just…I burned out Harvey. I failed. I failed at us, and I failed at school, and I’m failing at work.”

Harvey eyed him for a long time, but when he finally replied, all he said was, “So what do you want, Mike?”

“Nothing,” Mike told him, swallowing hard. “I just wanted you to know why I dropped out, that I had to, but I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

Something in Harvey’s eyes told Mike he didn’t even care enough anymore to be disappointed, and that hurt even worse.

Harvey didn’t say anything, just turned and opened the door slowly.

“I love you,” Mike said suddenly, feeling panic flood his chest. It was only a fluke that Harvey had shown up at all; that Mike had never given NYU his new address, because it only would have made things feel as permanent as they were.

“Mike…”

“I love you,” he repeated. “And I know you won’t say it back and I don’t expect you to and I’m not trying to make you. I just—we haven’t seen each other in a year. I haven’t heard your voice in a year. We haven’t touched in…” His voice cracked on that line, lip quivering. “If we don’t see each other again, I just wanted you to know that. That I love you and I always will and I never stopped.” He took a deep breath. “I love you, Harvey. And I know you don’t love me anymore, but…I don’t know when you started to hate me.”

Mike waited.

Harvey left.

 

*

Mike didn’t miss school for a long time. In fact, for the first few months after dropping out, all he felt was relief. It meant less studying and more sleep. But he was still miserable. He had no friends, except Safety, and really, he was okay with that. With the hours he put in at work, he didn’t have time to socialize anyway, and going out in the first place was expensive – he didn’t have that kind of disposable income.

But twelve hour day after twelve hour day, another rude customer, another dine and dash, another shitty tip or no tip at all, another raised eyebrow from the super. His life was the same relentless, monotonous struggle, like living a thousand Mondays over and over again.

He couldn’t quit, but he couldn’t move up; couldn’t even get a raise. His job was important on some level, and he didn’t believe he was above it. But Harvey had been right – his brain was rotting. Without school to keep it somewhat stimulated, it went dull and slow and it felt like nothing ever required him to think at all anymore.

Sometimes he biked past his old campus and the realization hit him, that he had, in fact, made a mistake. He’d done what he had to do at the time to make ends meet, but in the long run, it would cost him. And all he’d ever wanted to do was graduate. Get a degree – a real one – have a good job that he liked, that paid enough to keep him from living paycheck to paycheck. A career where he wasn’t a fraud.

 

*

After a shot of liquid courage, he used all of his grocery money to take a taxi to Harvey’s building.

_Our home._

He would’ve rode his bike, but from his apartment to this side of Manhattan at night was a long and treacherous ride, even for him.

So he dished out the cash, thanked the driver, and cautiously made his way inside.

It occurred to him halfway up the elevator that this was a bad idea, just as most of his whole life had been. In fact, the only good decision he could remember making was when he married Harvey. And even if that had gone to shit, he still believed it.

False hope that Harvey would even open the door and not shut it in his face had sent him there, but he prepared himself for the worst when he knocked.

Harvey did open the door – but not enough to invite Mike in. He just looked at him expectantly.

“Um…you were right,” Mike admitted, on the edge of a slew of confessions. “About everything. I did make a mistake. I do want to go back to school. I want to graduate. I’m tired. I’m so tired of working so hard and being so broke. I’m three weeks behind on rent and—and I’m out of food, and my super found out about Safety and now he’s saying I can’t have pets, that I have to get rid of her.”

“But I’ll move somewhere—I’ll find another place before I give her away. And I’m not asking you for any money. I’m just telling you that you were right, you were always right. And if you were always right then you must have been right when we got divorced—”

“Mike…” It sounded less like a threat and more like a plea for Mike to just stop, but Mike was on a roll now, bottled up emotions finally scrambling to escape.

“But I can’t figure out why,” he continued. “I don’t know—I don’t know what I did wrong. You told me I didn’t do anything wrong, but I must have done _something,_ I must have screwed up, like I always do. And I don’t know what it was, I keep trying to think back, trying to figure it out and I can’t. I remember everything but I don’t remember what I did wrong. I need you to tell me. So I can say sorry, sorry it ruined everything, sorry I made you leave me. And if I really didn’t—” Mike stopped to compose himself. “If I really didn’t do anything wrong, I want you to tell me I did. Just…make something up if you have to because—” He cried freely, because there was no stopping it now. “It will hurt less than believing you just got sick of me. That you promised you loved me; that you’d always love me, but you woke up one day and you didn’t anymore.”

“You didn’t screw up, Mike,” Harvey told him. “But I didn’t sick of you, either.”

Mike was still confused, more now than ever, but he didn’t know what else to ask, and he was afraid to push too hard.

He lingered there for a moment, when it occurred to him that he didn’t have any money to get back home. Apparently, Harvey noticed the despair in his eyes and dug up a bit of mercy.

“Do you need to somewhere to sleep tonight?” he asked, not sounding put out, but not exactly sounding thrilled either.

Mike nodded slowly, averting his eyes, and eventually Harvey opened the door and stepped aside.

It was the first time Mike had set foot in their home – _Harvey’s home –_ in over a year. Nothing looked like it had changed. The furniture was in the same place, same décor on the walls, same clean, familiar smell.

But there were no pictures. Of course, Mike had taken the one of he and Harvey in Italy that had been pinned to the fridge for two years. In it, Harvey had his arm slung around Mike’s neck, face pressed to Mike’s temple, both of them smiling, beautiful backdrop of the sunset and a busy café. Mike had put it in a frame next to his bed. He couldn’t help it.

Speaking of frames, he noticed as he cautiously made his way into his old living room that the few they’d had strategically placed on each table next to the couch were missing. The shelf beside the TV where they’d kept their DVD collection looked sparse; only a dozen or so, and from where Mike stood, none of his favorites.

It was his whole life, narrowed down to only Harvey’s belongings.

“Here.”

He heard Harvey’s voice behind him, and turned in time to be handed a pillow, a sheet, and blanket; none of which he recognized.

He took them and somberly created a bed on their old couch while Harvey wandered into the kitchen and poured a glass of scotch. He didn’t offer any to Mike.

It was only eleven thirty, but Mike was exhausted, and he wasn’t quite sure what else he was supposed to do. He considered asking if he could use the shower, or even the sink, but he hadn’t expected to stay the night so he hadn’t even brought a toothbrush.

It all just felt awkward, so Mike just curled up, faced the inside of the couch and covered up with the blanket.

 

*

It was seven thirty in the morning when he phone started ringing. At first, coming out of a deep, long overdue sleep, he thought it was his alarm clock. But after he fumbled with it for a few seconds, he recognized the name on the caller ID and took a deep breath before answering.

“Hello?” he asked, voice heavy with fatigue.

And then it started; a long winded, annoyed rant from his landlord about his rent, about the cat, about utilities, about how he’d given Mike too much grace time and now he had to get out. Immediately.

Mike argued – or pleaded with him – for several minutes, but nothing changed. It came to an ugly ultimatum: he came up with 750 dollars in 24 hours and he got rid of Safety – or he had to move out.

It wasn’t until the called ended, and he had his face in his hands, completely sobbing, that he realized how loud he’d been. He glanced up, furiously wiping tears off his face, in time to see Harvey stepping out of his bedroom, looking tired and annoyed and a little curious.

His hair was tousled, the way it always got when he just woke up. There was just enough sunlight coming in through the windows to light up his face, his sleepy, squinting brown eyes, and for a few seconds Mike could only stare. He remembered what Harvey was like in the morning, how soft he was in a worn out t-shirt and jogging pants, the way he would wake up an hour before their alarm clock just to pull Mike up against his chest and fall back asleep, sometimes whispering _I love you_ if he stayed awake long enough.

“Sorry,” Mike finally said, setting down his phone. “I didn’t mean to wake you, I—”

Harvey shrugged, apparently giving up on going back to bed. He went into the kitchen and made coffee instead.

“What was that about?” he asked, once he’d returned.

Stunned – because Harvey had never asked about his life since the day they got the divorce – Mike hesitated. “Uh…just…”

“You’re getting evicted?”

“No,” Mike lied. If he could come up with the money, by some grace of God, _he_ could stay. It was Safety who really had to go. “But I can’t—I can’t find a new place in one day, and he’s making me get rid of Safety and I can’t—I won’t.”

He waited for something, anything, from Harvey, but there was only silence, the occasional sound of Harvey sipping his coffee.

“Do you think…um…” Mike hated asking for favors when Harvey was so distant, so cold. “Do you think maybe…maybe you could take her?” The look on Harvey’s face said no, so Mike pleaded his case desperately. “Please. It would only be for a few weeks, until I can save…until I can a get new place…I’ll come back for her, I swear.”

Realistically, Mike knew he’d probably be on the street in a day, which was why he was really asking. There was no humanly possible way to come up with all the money he owed in such a short amount of time, and he’d even considered seriously lowering his morals to try.

“I’ll take the cat,” Harvey finally agreed.

Mike exhaled, drying the remaining tears in his eyes. They continued to water. This was over a year of emotions bursting at the seams in one night, one morning, and it was crushing him.

“Thank you,” he said.

Harvey nodded. “How much do you owe?”

“What?”

“In rent. How far behind are you?”

Mike stalled, unsure why Harvey was asking, why he suddenly sounded so charitable when he’d all but cut him off. “Like…eight hundred,” he admitted, looking away.

He knew that was pocket change to Harvey, and he’d be honest about it, but he would not ask for help, even if his eyes betrayed him.

Harvey looked thoughtful, and after a few minutes, he set down his coffee. “Why don’t you get your stuff, and the cat, and stay here,” he suggested, and Mike’s head flew up. “Guest room’s empty, still a bed in there though.”

“I…I…” Mike struggled with what to say to the offer. It was strange; the prospect of moving back into his old home, but not actually coming home. Being a guest. A roommate. “I wouldn’t…I couldn’t get to work on time.”

“So quit your job,” Harvey said, standing up. “It’s a dumb job anyway, waste of your time. Get one in Manhattan where people actually live.”

Mike flinched. “Harvey…” he called, to ex-husband’s back. “I can’t afford to rent a shitty studio in the Bronx. There’s no way I can pay you to live here.”

“When you find a job, let me know what you can handle. We’ll go from there.”

Even though the circumstances were unorthodox, Mike had no choice but to accept. He was desperate. And he was also desperate to be near Harvey again, even if they were emotionally miles apart.

So seventeen hours later, he packed all his shit up – two boxes, one not quite full, and Safety – and put it all in the guest room at Harvey’s condo. He’d brought the blankets he’d taken in the divorce, and made the bed. He brushed his teeth in his old bathroom, but kept his toothbrush in his room.  He got the feeling he shouldn’t start leaving his personal items around. He wasn’t exactly sure if Harvey meant for this to be a long-term situation, or just a temporary reprieve given out of pity.

 

*

A week passed, and then a month, and then two. He found another restaurant job. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was the fastest thing he could find. He continued to search for something he thought Harvey would consider more acceptable, or at least that would pay better.

In the meantime, he kept what little money he needed to feed himself and Safety, and gave the rest of his paycheck to Harvey. Never in person, only left on the counter, and it was usually gone by the next morning.

For the most part, their schedules were so opposite that their paths hardly crossed. Mike went to work before Harvey got home, and Harvey was usually asleep when Mike finished his shift. He always came in quietly, trying not to be disruptive, snuck into the bathroom as carefully as possible, turning the sink on low.

He tried to shower when Harvey was at work.

For once, Mike had the weekends off, which he made up for in spades by working all week. But Harvey technically had weekends off too. Which really meant that he just brought all his cases home, did it on the coffee table, files spread out everywhere, trademark workaholic.

So Mike spent the majority of those days in his bedroom, trying to make his presence as unknown as possible. As much as he wanted to see Harvey, to talk to him, to help him with his work, he didn’t feel like he was welcome. Instead he let the time pass, thought about school, read books, took well-deserved naps with Safety under his arm, and generally basked in the relief of feeling like he had stable living arrangements, at least for the time being.

One morning, on a Sunday, staring at his pale reflection in the mirror, Mike popped open the medicine cabinet in search of toothpaste. He found everything except. Razors, aspirin, floss…anti-depressants?

Knowing he shouldn’t, but being too tired to care, he reached for the half-empty prescription bottle, turning it over in his hands and studying the label.

Then a hand snaked over his right shoulder, gently snatching the container and putting it back on the shelf. Mike turned, heart racing, feeling caught.

“They make me numb,” Harvey muttered. “Make me more of a jerk.”

Mike hesitated. “I was just…looking for toothpaste.”

Harvey pointed to a drawer under the sink. “In there,” he said, and then walked out.

 

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so I can't even seem to make my own updating deadlines! Life, man. Anyway, hope you like the conclusion. Love you all!
> 
> Forgive the inaccurate legal stuff. My sister's a lawyer but I...I am just a failed ex-crim major >_>

 

*

 

It was four months after he’d moved back in with Harvey – except, of course, as a scarcely present roommate – when he asked for something that Harvey had, however indirectly, promised never to give him.

He wandered out of his room for a change on an evening they both happened to be home. He was wearing sweats and Harvey’s old Harvard t-shirt that he’d not-so-accidentally taken when they’d divorced, and he wasn’t sure if Harvey would notice, or if he’d care.

“Hey,” he said quietly. Harvey was at the table, eating slowly, every now and then glancing at his laptop and typing away, fingers moving quickly, and Mike presumed it was something important. It always was.

“Hey,” Harvey replied, but he hardly looked up. Then he nodded toward the kitchen. “There’s food in the oven if you want some. Might have to heat it up.”

Mike could smell the food – a familiar kind of pasta they used to make together, when they had the time – and his mouth was practically watering, stomach twisting with hunger. He nodded appreciatively.

After getting a plate, and some water, he started to retreat to his room.

“You know, you can eat here,” he heard Harvey call. Mike turned around to see him motioning toward the chair across from him.

“Are you sure?”

Harvey nodded. “I know I’m an asshole, Mike. But I don’t bite.”

“You’re not—” Mike stopped himself, walked to the table and sat down, kept his mouth shut except when he opened it to eat.

When he finished, he took a brave breath. “Um, I don’t want to interrupt your work…I just…when you have a second…I wanted to ask…”

“What?” Harvey looked up, finally.

“Well, I was…just wondering if it would be okay if I…if I kept like, just like, half of my next check. I’d make up for it next month. I just…wanted…I thought I could sign up for another class. Just one. If I go to the city college, I could pay for one, and then…maybe, you know, eventually I could catch up on credits and…”

Harvey was staring at him, and Mike knew he was rambling.

“It’s not a big deal. Forget I asked, I’m sorry, it’s dumb,” he apologized. He couldn’t handle the judgment he suspected would come from this lowly idea of going to community college, of all places.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Harvey said, and that caught Mike off-guard. “You should do it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, rookie. Go for it.”

Mike stopped, looked down at his plate. He could remember the last time Harvey had called him that – around ten p.m., just after kissing Mike’s forehead, about a month before he’d asked for – no, _insisted on_ – a divorce.

“So…it’s okay, then? I mean with the money.”

“Just do what you need to do, Mike.”

 

*

**Nineteen months ago**

*

Mike woke up to hand tugging hard on his foot, a jumble of curse words, and someone fluttering around the room in a hurry.

“Harvey?” he asked sleepily, feeling disoriented. He looked around and tried to process. _It’s dark outside. Went to school. Took a shower. Got Harvey’s tux ready for the—Oh, shit._ He couldn’t remember at what point he’d fallen asleep, only that he’d had a terrible headache.

“Mike!” Harvey barked. “Get up and get dressed, I’m late.”

“It’s only 7:45,” Mike said, to pacify, not patronize, but Harvey was wound tight – had been for a week now, at least, wrapped up in a monopoly of a merger – and he didn’t take the reassurance well.

“And the gala starts at 9:00, Mike. We still need to get dressed and beat traffic and if I’m late—you know what? Just get up and help me. Where is my suit?”

Mike sat up and pointed to the pressed tuxedo hanging on the closet door. “Right behind you.”

Harvey snatched it with less finesse than he’d typically handle clothes with, but he was frazzled and stressed and work had been wearing his brain down to a cluster of deadlines and consequences and the daunting possibility of losing.

“I’m taking a shower for ten seconds. I need you up, dressed, and on the phone with Ray before I get out. Can you handle that?”

“Yeah,” Mike answered, wiping sleep from his eyes. He knew it was work that had Harvey on edge, but it didn’t mean that living on the receiving end of a series of sharp orders, passive disappointment, and constant irritability for six days had been fun.

He dragged himself out of bed, winced at his returning headache, and started stripping off his clothes.

*

Mike wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of trailing behind Harvey for four hours while the firm wined and dined billionaire clientele, but he’d been playing the part of supportive spouse for three years at these events now. He took it in stride, for the most part, but sometimes he still missed being Mike Ross, the brilliant attorney.

Marrying Harvey had made up for leaving Pearson Specter in spades however (well, that and the thought of not being arrested) and most days Mike was capable of focusing on the future. He knew there had to be _something_ out there he’d love to do just as much as practicing law; he just had to find it. And the best way to do that was to finish undergrad and look forward, not backward.

But tonight, with a headache, piles of homework, and Harvey’s passive aggressive hostility weighing him down, Mike could hardly find the energy to smile when they stepped out of the town car.

They slipped inside, face-first into bright lights and a slew of the elite dressed to the nines, and someone tweaking the treble on a microphone that crackled from a speaker directly into Mike’s ear. He pressed two fingers to his temple and took a deep breath.

*

The first hour was mostly painless. Lots of handshaking and reciting the same line – _Mike Specter, nice to meet you –_ for every new face he met, listening to Harvey complain about why Jessica scheduled these events _in the middle of a fucking game-changing case_ in the first place.

It was a little later on that Mike cracked, his head throbbing, a wave of dizziness sending him to the men’s room to splash water on his face. He felt a little better until someone walked in and scared the shit out of him.

 “Jesus Christ, Donna!”

“I just came to ask if you were okay, Mike, calm down.”

“Okay, well, this is the men’s room. And you just… _appear_ all the time. How do you even—who does that?”

Donna folded her arms, awarded him a quick smile that was gone almost as fast as it had appeared. “Mike,” she said sternly. “You didn’t just jump a foot off the ground because I surprised you. Your startle response is off, you’re a nervous wreck, you’re pale as a – well, paler than normal. What’s going on, pup?”

 “Nothing. I just don’t feel good.”

“Then why are you here?”

Mike scoffed. “Why do you think? I can’t just not show up to one of these things, okay? I mean, Harvey—”

“Bullshit,” Donna interrupted. “Harvey wouldn’t drag you along if you were sick.” She studied him for a few seconds. “You didn’t tell him.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because!” Mike snapped, turning from the sink to face her. “If he wasn’t so stressed out about this fucking merger, I wouldn’t have had to _tell_ him, Donna, he would have _noticed._ Every time he gets a case like this, he’s a jerk—”

“You think I haven’t noticed that too, Mike? I work with the man ten hours a day.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one who lives with him. I mean, this morning he yelled at me because the coffee wasn’t hot enough. It’s usually just a couple days, you know? But it’s been a week now, because the client keeps postponing everything. It’s not even…” Mike ran a frustrated hand over his face. “It’s not that I can’t handle it, I can, it’s just…I don’t want him to feel like this. I don’t want him to be so stressed out he stays up all night working. And it…”

“It hurts,” Donna realized, expression softening into empathy.

Mike sighed, “Yeah.”

“You should still tell him you’re sick.”

“I…I don’t want to stress him out more, Donna. I just…I just need to get him through the week and he’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.”

Donna nodded. “It will be, Mike. But if you think that Harvey Specter, even with Winning tunnelvision, would ever put work before you, you don’t know him as well as you think. Remind him that you need him more than this case does.”

*

Mike spotted Harvey in a sea of Prada and Armani, talking to two people he’d never seen before, and walked up to cautiously hijack the conversation.

“Harvey – sorry – can I talk to you?”

Harvey politely excused himself and let Mike guide him out of earshot.

“Can we go home?”

“What? Mike, we’ve been here for an hour.”

“I know, but I don’t feel good. I feel sick, Harvey.”

“You were fine when we left home.”

“No, I—”

“Listen, if you didn’t want to go you should’ve told me before we got here.”

Mike looked away, Harvey’s reaction only intensifying his headache. He didn’t want to go home alone, but if it meant going home, period, he’d do it. “Can I just leave then?”

“I told Ray he didn’t have to be back until one, Mike.”

“I’ll take a cab.”

“I need you here, Mike. And you can’t tough it out for one night?”

Mike’s brain was on fire with guilt, and all of Harvey’s words felt like jet fuel. “I feel sick, Harvey,” he said, for the second time. “But I…it’s fine, I’ll stay, I can stay.”

Harvey’s straighten-up, look-around-and-then back was followed by a longsuffering sigh. “Sick how?” he asked, tone a little softer. “Did you eat the hors d’oeuvres? I don’t think that stuff is even cooked.”

If the pain in his head had spared him, Mike would have smiled. “I’ve had a really bad headache ever since I got out of class. And I feel really dizzy. I just want to go home and sleep.”

Harvey regarded him a second longer. “Okay,” he relented, reaching for his cell phone. “I’ll call Ray and we’ll wait outside until he gets here.”

*

The ride home was much more peaceful. Ray had on classical music and it drifted quietly from the speakers in the backseat. Traffic had died down and Harvey wasn’t tapping his foot or checking his watch every three seconds. In fact, even he seemed more than a little relieved to have made an early exit.

Mike’s headache hadn’t faded, but it hadn’t worsened either, which felt like a victory in itself. He leaned his head back and it lolled to the right, resting on Harvey’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, feeling more asleep than awake.

Harvey pressed his lips against Mike’s forehead, briefly, and then his breath hovered just over Mike’s hair. “I know, rookie,” he whispered. “Me too.”

*

Mike didn’t see Harvey the next morning. He’d left for work before Mike’s alarm had ever gone off, and if he’d tried to wake him, Mike couldn’t remember. He’d slept too soundly to remember anything at all.

Class was anticlimactic, and so was the homework he finished during it. That was the way it usually felt – like someone was telling Picasso to paint a stick figure – but at least he didn’t feel sick anymore.

When Harvey got home that evening, Mike followed him into the living room, perched behind him on the armrest, and began to knead his fingers into tense, broad shoulders.

“Tried to wake you this morning,” Harvey said, leaning back into the touch. “You wouldn’t move, had to check your pulse. How’s your headache?”

“Gone,” Mike told him. “You’re tense.”

Harvey just tilted his neck and hummed while Mike’s hands manipulated the muscles there, fingers trailing around to Harvey’s tie, loosening it enough to get his finger under the collar of his shirt.

“Mike,” Harvey eventually said, reaching up to still him. “As good as this feels, we need to talk about something.”

Behind him, Mike rolled his eyes. He felt a small pang of anxiety at those words, but mostly assumed it was more bullshit to do with work. More hours Jessica wanted him to put in, more late nights, another drawn out week of him being cranky as hell.

“Okay.” Mike slipped his hands down the front of Harvey’s chest, and then brought them together in a loop under his throat, chin resting on his shoulder. “What?”

Harvey sighed. “Jessica’s sending us to California to close this deal with Stanton, Smith, and Williams.”

“What? I thought the other firm was coming to you?”

“Apparently their client isn’t an east coast kind of person. Doesn’t want to travel. If we fight them on it, it could just delay everything another month for all I know. Easier for Pearson Specter to just go there.”

“Harvey.” Mike nuzzled his face against his husband’s neck. “After we got married Jessica promised never to send you on any business trips again. You’ve been on like, five, since then.”

“I know, Mike. I’m sorry. Trust me, I have nothing to say to L.A. for four days, but—”

“Four days?!”

“It’s out of my hands.” Harvey shook his head, struggling for the words. “This case is driving me insane. I know you can tell, I know I’m a jerk when I’m like this, when I’m stressed out. I want it to be over, too, Mike. But I want our side to win, I want to keep my name on the door.”

Mike exhaled in quiet resignation. “When do you have to leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

He winced. “What time?”

“Early.”

“I hate this,” Mike said bitterly, to no one in particular, just a general objection at the current state of affairs. He understood why Harvey had to do this, understood that the job demanded a lot from him, that sometimes it took more than it gave. Mike knew this because he’d experienced it all firsthand, and he’d been there with Harvey, sat at the same table, stood in the same courtroom, ran at the same breakneck speed, pulled the same all-nighters.

It wasn’t until now, more than three and a half years after he quit Pearson Specter, that all of that understanding was doing little to temper the resentment he was starting to feel for the profession itself. What was the point of being a lawyer if you couldn’t have a life?

*

“Late? What do you mean you’re running late? Ray, I called you two hours ago!”

“Christ,” Mike muttered under his breath. Harvey was the best elitist dick he’d ever seen sometimes, in the worst way. It wasn’t all that often and work was almost always the driving force behind it, but still, what a sight, especially at five o’clock in the morning.

Mike finished packing Harvey’s suitcase while Harvey berated Ray for getting stuck in traffic a bit longer, before ending the call as angrily as anyone could press a button.

“Are you done yet?” he asked roughly, coming up behind Mike. “This is why you should’ve just let me pack. I know how to pack, Mike!”

“No, you don’t. You always forget something and then you call me and ask why I didn’t remember it for you.” Mike calmly zipped up the suitcase. “It’s easier if I just do it.”

Harvey huffed. “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Where? I thought Ray—”

“Ray had a lapse in memory and forgot how to navigate the very complex grid system that is Manhattan, so –” Harvey grabbed his keys. He looked _very_ unimpressed. “We’re driving.”

Another hour of rushed, cornered, anxious Harvey, only this time in the confines of an SUV. _Awesome,_ Mike thought.

 

“I’m driving,” Harvey announced.

“Of course you are,” Mike muttered. “Control freak.”

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. Come on, get in, if I miss this flight Jessica will kill me. Or replace me.”

Mike climbed into the passenger seat and shook his head. “Only to Harvey Specter is being replaced worse than being murdered.”

 

It was a slightly jarring ride to JFK, with Harvey’s persistent tapping of his fingers on his thigh, combined with his lead foot – which was unnecessary considering they were way ahead of morning rush hour – and how he kept turning the volume on the radio down each time Mike turned it up.

“Hey! That was a good song.”

“Mike, I’m not listening to the radio at five thirty in the morning. I can’t hear myself think.”

“Maybe you’re just getting too old to multitask.”

Harvey clicked the radio off completely and that discussion was over.

 

At the airport, in a drop-off lane, Harvey lifted his suitcase out of the backset, set it on the concrete and extended the handle. All the while, Mike made a dozen gentle attempts to get his attention, as the time ticked down.

“Harvey,” he said, voice only just audible over the early morning orchestrated chaos around them. “Harvey.”

“I have forty minutes to get through security,” Harvey was muttering. “Forty minutes.”

“You’ll be fine,” Mike assured him. “It’s early. There’s not even that many people here.”

Harvey nodded wildly as if in agreement, but he still shut the door hard and took another glance at his watch. “Coffee? Where’s my coffee?”

Mike found the thermos in a cup holder in the console, and leaned in to get it. “Here,” he said, when he turned back around.

“Great, thanks.”

“Harvey.”

“Mike, I gotta go.”

 _“Harvey.”_ Mike’s voice was strained now, desperate, and he stared hopefully, blue eyes tinged with tears.

Finally, Harvey let go of the suitcase and moved into Mike’s space beside the car. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Four days, okay?”

Mike nodded, letting their foreheads bump. “Four days.”

“M-hm.” Harvey lowered his head enough to press their lips together. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Call me when you land?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Harvey, I’m serious.”

Harvey laughed. “I’ll call you, baby. I always do, right?”

“Yeah,” Mike conceded, pulling him into a tight but fleeting hug. “Okay, you can go. I’d drop the whole frustrated-James-Bond thing though. I’m probably the only one who won’t punch you for it.”

“Right.” Harvey smirked, but there was a shadow of apology in it. He nodded toward the car. “Go to school, Mike.”

Mike waved him off, got into the driver’s seat and pulled out his phone. _Breathe,_ he typed, and pressed send.

*

Four days passed the same way every second apart from Harvey usually passed – painfully slow. Class after class, boring evenings alone watching TV, always getting Harvey’s voicemail because their schedules clashed with the time zones. He texted though, all the time, and it felt good to at least have a somewhat consistent line of communication open; to know Harvey was fine, and that he’d be coming home soon enough.

On the third day, Harvey sent him the texts he’d been waiting for.

_We did it. Client took our deal. We’re closing tonight. I’ll be home tomorrow, flight gets in just before midnight. If you don’t hear from me, don’t freak out, I’m turning my phone off so Jessica doesn’t call until everything’s in stone. If it’s an emergency, though, I’m pretty sure Louis keeps his on vibrate in his front pocket. I love you.  
H_

Mike grinned, set his phone on the nightstand, and fell asleep with his face in Harvey’s pillow.

 

*

 Harvey didn’t take the car keys when Mike offered them to him, just hoisted his suitcase up into the open tailgate, and in a clipped tone, said, “You can drive.”

Noticing Harvey’s red-rimmed, glossy eyes, Mike asked, “Were you drinking on the plane?”

“Yup.”

Mike frowned, but got in the car anyway and started the engine. He didn’t like the feeling he was getting. The energy radiating from beside him wasn’t that of relief or even exhaustion. It was tense, even more so than before Harvey had even left, as if the trip hadn’t had any impact at all, let alone a good one.

“The case is over, Harvey. It’s done. The firm won. Right? I mean, it’s okay now. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Mike.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

It took the entire forty minute drive before either of them spoke again. Mike racked his brain for something that could have gone wrong between Harvey’s last text and his arrival in New York, or if he was just extremely sleep deprived.

“Why were you drinking?” Mike finally asked, as he pulled the SUV snugly up against the curb outside their condo.

“I don’t know, Mike. I was celebrating. Okay?”

“Alone. On a plane.”

“Yeah.”

“Harvey, I—”

 “Goddamn it, Mike!” Harvey slammed the dashboard with his hand. “You always do this! You push and you push and you _push._ This is what I fucking hate about you—”

Mike flinched, but kept his eyes down on the steering wheel.

“Did it occur to you that sometimes I don’t wanna psychoanalyze every single thing? That sometimes I just want to fucking let it go and move on? It was a rough flight, I had some whisky, thought it made more sense to let you drive since, I don’t know, you didn’t drink at all.”

Mike was fighting back tears now, shaking his head in denial, trying to figure out how everything was falling apart around him when things were supposed to be _good_ now, supposed to be back to normal. Normal for them was _amazing,_ which was why Mike tolerated the occasional day or two when Harvey brought work home with him. But this, right here, wasn’t normal. _Harvey would never say that to me._

“I didn’t realize there was anything you hated about me,” he sniffled.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Harvey sighed, raking his hands through his hair. “I can’t— You’re so dramatic, Mike, I can’t deal with this tonight. I’m going to bed.”

 

Mike stayed outside in the car for about ten minutes after Harvey had gotten out of the passenger side and slammed the door. Eventually, with the darkness and the silence becoming more and more eerie, Mike went inside.

He found Harvey on the couch, awake and still in jeans, but clearly there for the night, a pillow tucked under his head. At first, Mike pretended not to care. He knew Harvey could hear him, so he went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, changed, and got into bed. Even turned the light out and lied down for all of twenty-minutes.

But then.

“Harvey. Harvey.”

“What?”

“Are you asleep?”

“Not anymore.”

“Will you come to bed?”

“Mike…”

“Please,” Mike begged, leaning over the couch and rubbing Harvey’s shoulder. “I was just making sure you were okay. That’s all I’m ever trying to do. I missed you. I missed you so much. I don’t want to sleep alone again. Please come to bed.”

He waited for a solid minute, his hand still resting on Harvey’s bicep. Harvey didn’t move, though, so after that excruciating minute went by, Mike went back to their room. He found their cat asleep between the pillows, pulled her up against him, and tried not to think about anything at all for once in his life.

A soft knock on the doorframe prompted him to lift his head.

“Hey.”

Harvey stood there in rumpled clothes, hair a disaster, eyes heavy with fatigue. “Offer still valid?”

Mike nodded quickly and patted the other side of the bed. Slowly, Harvey wandered over, peeling his clothes off like it was the last strenuous activity he could manage, and then collapsed into bed onto his back. Immediately, there was a gentle, pale hand on his chest, tracing imaginary lines on his skin.

“Jetlagged?” Mike’s voice was soft and concerned and forgiving.

“M-hm.” There was a pause and then Harvey sighed regretfully. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Just sleep.”

“I’m so sorry, Mike. I’m so sorry.”

Mike just hushed him, snuggled up as close as he could physically get, considering there was a cat between them, and wrapped his arm around Harvey’s chest.

It was the fastest he fell asleep in four nights.

 

*

Mike was proud to say that he and Harvey were no worse for wear after the infamous Validity merger had come and wreaked havoc and gone.

For a few days, it seemed like something was gnawing at Harvey’s psyche. But when Mike would ask him what was wrong, he’d shrug it off, smile, and shut up any more of Mike’s questions with a consuming kiss, and that was that. After a week, Mike didn’t notice it anymore.

What he did notice was that everything was right back in its place: Harvey home in time to eat dinner at a reasonable hour. Movies. Laughing. Cuddling on the couch. Making love like it was an Olympic sport. _Gold,_ Mike thought, _We’d totally get gold._

No rushing around like idiots, no fighting over coffee; just the ninety-nine percent of their marriage that was and always had been _amazing,_ when Harvey wasn’t trying to take on a legal battle the size of Sparta.

“I think Safety needs a friend,” Mike announced one night. He was leaning back into Harvey’s lap, looking up, their cat purring hard against his chest.

Harvey raised an eyebrow.

“She’s lonely,” Mike insisted, knowing the cat looked anything but.

“I will literally buy you _anything else_ except another cat.”

“I’m gonna remember you said that.”

Harvey laughed and ran his hand through Mike’s hair. “I’m sure you will.”

 

*

It was six weeks after Harvey had returned from California that it happened.

Mike had a fork full of pasta halfway to his mouth, and Harvey had been eerily quiet all evening.

And then, from across the table, voice low but decisive—

“I want a divorce.”

*

 

**Present Day**

*

Mike didn’t feel right paying to enroll in more than one class, and honestly, with work, he wasn’t sure he could even handle more than that anymore.

In fact, signing up for school had less to do with his desire to graduate – which he knew now might never happen – and more to do with something to pique his interest, get his brain going again, so it wasn’t so stagnant; so it wouldn’t atrophy from a lack of use.

He switched to day shift, which meant he saw a lot more of Harvey. He was okay with this. Elated with this, actually, but he tried to keep a low profile because he couldn’t tell if Harvey was okay with it.

In the evenings, he’d study in his bedroom. Occasionally, if Harvey was working late, he’d study out in the living room. Once in a while, he’d steal one of Harvey’s old law school books from his bookcase, and try to remember what it was like to be a lawyer.

Of course there were more than a few nights that Harvey came home and Mike was still on the couch, homework finished, book clutched in his hands like it was precious gold from the past.

“Sorry,” he’d say, when Harvey saw. “I just missed…reading about the law, I guess.”

Harvey would shrug noncommittally and then disappear into the shower.

 

One night, he came home, poured a large glass of scotch, and walked out onto the balcony. Something about his expression, his entire posture, concerned Mike, who set down his books and stood up. He wasn’t sure if he should follow, but his heart tugged him out into the cool air, keeping several feet of distance between them. It was still the closest they’d been in months.

“Harvey,” he said. “Are you okay?”

For a long time, Harvey didn’t answer. He stood there, in his shirt sans jacket, loosened tie, staring out over the city, just as handsome as Mike had ever seen him

Then, after what seemed like eternity, he looked down into his half-drained glass.

“I cheated on you.”

Mike didn’t process it. It was like a foreign language that he could only half-understand.

“What?”

“I cheated on you,” Harvey repeated. He looked up again, but not at Mike, like he was speaking to the night itself.

For a few fleeting seconds, Mike thought that Harvey meant he’d been seeing someone else since they’d finalized their divorce. But he knew Harvey had every right to, even if the notion of it still hurt like hell.

Harvey answered as though he could tell what Mike was thinking, so, firmly enough that Mike believed him, he said, “I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Oh.”

“I haven’t been with anyone else since we separated.”

Mike shook his head. “Me either.”

They stood there in silence, and the gears in Mike’s head turned slowly. “What did you mean by…I mean...you said…”

“It’s why I divorced you,” Harvey explained, voice heavy with shame. “I cheated on you.”

“W-what?” Mike stuttered helplessly. “When?”

“That business trip I took. With the firm from California.”

“You…you slept with someone? On that trip?”

Harvey took the last long drink of his scotch and nodded, face looking pale and sickly even in the dark.

“Was it…who…did I…do I know them?”

“No.”

“Was it…another…another man, or…” Mike stuttered and trailed off, dropping his head as his heartbeat quickened and his whole body shuddered with anxiety.

Harvey nodded again, and Mike’s throat tightened. Not necessarily because of the infidelity alone, but because Harvey had thrown their entire life together away because of it, without ever even asking for forgiveness.

“I didn’t even know him, Mike. It was…it was just…sex.”

“But I mean….why…I thought…” Mike’s voice cracked. “I thought I was enough. You _said_ I was enough.”

“You were,” Harvey told him. “It was…a tough case…”

“I know, I remember. You were…really stressed that week. I tried to—”

“I know you did. And I didn’t want to leave you. I wanted to go and get it over with and come home. But we finally closed the deal, me and this other partner, we…went to celebrate, started drinking…” Harvey stopped, his jaw clenching, forcing the words out like they’d been cemented inside him for over a year. “I got hammered. Went back to the hotel and…we went back to the hotel.”

Mike was thankful he stopped, that he spared any details. Just knowing was enough; enough pain that wasn’t even remotely tempered by the amount of time that had passed since the incident. In fact, Mike remembered everything about that week Harvey had been gone. He remembered texting him all the time – _How was your flight? Get some sleep. I’m okay. I miss you. Did you close yet? Be careful. I love you.. –_ and at the time, it hadn’t seemed clingy. Attached, maybe, but Harvey was used to that and it was the longest they’d ever been apart. Besides, separation anxiety was hardly Mike’s heaviest baggage. Looking back now, though, he wondered if it had been too much; if he’d driven Harvey away because he never gave him any distance at all.

He stood there on the balcony with his ex-husband and dug up every possible reason he could find in order to blame himself, the list in his head growing and growing the longer their silence stretched on.

_I was too needy. I didn’t try hard enough. I tried too hard. I didn’t give him any space. I pressured him to settle down. I asked for too much. I didn’t give him what he needed._

Mike was certain those thoughts would have continued, becoming sharper and crueler as they multiplied, if it weren’t for Harvey’s voice finally cutting in.

“I thought you’d be better off without me,” he began. “I wanted you to, I don’t know…move on. So I left you. I tried to cut ties completely. I wanted to help you, but I wanted you to stand on your own, so you never had to ask me for anything. That’s why I got so pissed when you dropped out of school. I just...I wanted you to get on with your life.”

“Harvey—”

“I’m just like my mother, Mike, don’t you get it? You deserved better.” Harvey turned, shaking his head rapidly as he walked back inside, into the kitchen for a refill.

Mike followed closely, stopping only when he reached the counter.

“You made me think it was my fault,” he said helplessly. “I thought I did something wrong, when you divorced me and you wouldn’t tell me why. Harvey, I’ve spent the last year of my life trying to figure out what _I_ did wrong. I didn’t move on at all. I didn’t want to.”

“I couldn’t tell you the truth, Mike. Every time I thought about it, I felt sick. I thought leaving you would hurt you less than telling you what I did. But when I left you, I couldn’t lie either. I couldn’t just make up some bullshit or blame it on you. So I didn’t tell you anything. I thought…I _hoped_ time would just make it all better.”

Mike hit the counter with his fist, ugly frustration surging to the surface. “But it _didn’t,_ Harvey! It didn’t do shit to make it better!”

“You would have _left_ me!” Harvey shouted, turning around so quickly that scotch splashed from the glass in his hand. “Everything would have been exactly the same except you would have _known_ I cheated on you and you would’ve _hated_ me for it and you still would’ve blamed yourself! Everything would’ve been the _same_ Mike, but it would’ve been a hell of a lot worse.”

“I would not have left you over this!” Mike dug his palms into his eyes to smear away the tears pouring out. “And when you left me, I never even took off my ring—” He held up his left hand. “I never took it off, because the day you put it on me, I…I’d never been that _happy_ before. I loved you so much. And all I think about when I look at this ring is how happy I was that day, how happy I was every day since then with you and I…I couldn’t take it off.”

Mike broke eye contact and sniffled, voice going from strained to small and desperate. “I never would’ve left you, Harvey. I would have cried and cried and cried and then I would have forgiven you and we would have moved the fuck on with _our_ life.”

Harvey just stared blearily at him from half a dozen feet away. “You say that now.”

“I would never have left you,” Mike repeated, almost a chant as he turned and walked back to the living room. “I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have.” He sat on the couch, put his head in his hands and sobbed. _“Oh my god. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t.”_

“And what if I did it again?” Harvey asked loudly, crossing the room. “What if I did it again, Mike? What if I’d gotten drunk and fucked some other guy again? And again, and again, because that’s what I saw growing up, because she taught me that’s just what happens, that I’d do it too, and marriages fail all the time.”

Mike looked up, face soaked, eyes bloodshot. “But you wouldn’t have. You made a mistake. I mean…we were _happy,_ Harvey. Weren’t we?”

Harvey looked down into his glass and nodded. “Yes. I was…I was never really content until I met you.”

“Then why…” Mike sniffled. “Why can’t we fix it? Why can’t we pick up where we left off? We got…Harvey, we got _married._ I was in it for the long haul.”

“I wouldn’t have forgiven you,” Harvey said quietly. “If you did it to me, I wouldn’t have forgiven you. You’re loyal to a fault, Mike. You always have been.”

“I don’t care.”

Harvey stepped a little closer to the couch. “Why are you letting me off the hook for this?”

“Because I love you. And if you still love me—”

“I do.” He nudged Mike’s knee with his own. “Stand up.”

Mike did, all but collapsing against Harvey’s chest, winding his arms around his waist. It was first embrace they’d shared in over a year, but it was just as a familiar as it had always been. Harvey’s cologne smelled the same, took Mike back to their better days, and his shirt was soft and worn against Mike’s face.

“I missed you every single day,” Harvey confessed, wrapping strong arms around Mike’s back. “I want…I want to ask you to come home.”

“I am.” Mike pressed his face into Harvey’s neck. “I am home.”

“No, I mean…I want you to come _home.”_

“I don’t want you to be with anyone else again. I don’t want you to leave me again.”

Harvey tilted Mike’s chin up gently. “Trust me,” he pleaded. “One more time.”

“Done,” Mike murmured. “Does that mean I get to move out of the guest room?”

“Damn right.” Harvey tugged him forward. “Get that cat of ours and come on.”

“Where are we going?” Mike found Safety perching on the bookshelf, and scooped her into his arms.

“To our bed. We’ll put on a movie. If you want.”

“I want.”

 

Mike had to take a moment to breathe when he climbed under the covers, on the bed they used to share, the mattress he used to sink into at the end of a long day, his arm snug around his husband’s chest.

While Harvey fished around on the nightstand for the remote control, Mike placed Safety between them, where she immediately curled up and began to purr. Almost reflexively, Harvey’s free hand found her head and began to scratch.

“You called her ours,” Mike realized. “You used to just call her mine.”

Harvey shrugged. “She cost me two hundred dollars at the vet, okay?”

Mike smirked. “You love her.”

“Fine.” Harvey rolled over and leaned in, his lips just lingering against Mike’s for several seconds. “But I love you a lot more.”

They scrolled through Netflix for a few minutes before Mike spoke up again.

“What are we gonna do about the…I mean…do you want to…” He twisted his ring around on his finger, the way he always did, like touching it was a tether to Harvey, to their vows, wherever he was.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When you’re ready, I’m ready,” Harvey told him. “I can ask Jessica for some time off, we could go to the courthouse and then…I don’t know. We could go somewhere, get out of the city for a while. Do you think…that’s good? Do you want to?”

Mike curled himself around Safety so he could lean his head on Harvey’s shoulder and sling an arm across his collarbone. He nodded, and holding on tight, whispered, “I do.”

 

*


End file.
